Phone interviews are always weird. You can’t
see the subject’s face, read their body language.
Happily, this does not present any great problem when
I chat to John Cale down a line from LA, where he
is currently producing an album for Brooklyn based
contender Marcus Congleton (aka Ambulance Ltd). While
never less than acutely articulate, some documentary
interviews I’ve seen have found the Welsh maestro
in measured, even taciturn mode. But not today, as
the 64-year-old former Velvet Underground lynchpin’s
rich Eisteddfod tones boom through the ether with
the enthusiasm of a 16-year-old who’s just formed
his first band. He is obviously on a roll at the moment,
and speaks directly and honestly.

The context of this exchange is the release of John’s
forthcoming album Circus Live (EMI) on February
5th next, featuring performances culled from shows
last year in Munich and The Paradiso, Amsterdam, over
two CDs, plus a live DVD. Cale and his band will play
a ten date UK tour at the end of January in support
of this new collection, which kicks off in Wrexham
in his native Wales, and takes in The Village, Dublin,
on January 19th – before heading off for a six
week slog around Europe.

Although no stranger to these shores in recent years
– since 1999 he has played Vicar St. twice, plus
the National Concert Hall – those were all solo
acoustic affairs, and so this is the first time since
a TV Club (before your time!) visit circa 1985 that
Cale has appeared in Dublin with a band. Any recollections
of that outing, John?

“Nah. None. Wait, was that the one where I sang
‘Danny Boy’?”

Er, yes John, and you were very drunk. These days,
the man is the epitome of sobriety, ‘workaholic’
being the only term from the lexicon of addictive behaviour
that could be levelled at him. So, why does he tour
so much?

“’Cos I like it. And I really like the
musicians I’m playing with at the moment, which
was one of the reasons for doing a live album now, to
have a record of some of these performances.”
The personnel he is speaking of are: Dustin Boyer –
guitar, Joseph Karnes – bass and Michael Jerome
– drums. Unlike 1979’s Sabotage/Live,
an album of previously unreleased material recorded
live with backing musicians in New York’s legendary
CBGB’s, Circus Live is a career retrospective,
a kind of electric companion piece to 1992’s acoustic
piano/guitar live assembly of highpoints from his back
catalogue, Fragments From a Rainy Season –
but with only four songs carrying over from that cherry-picking
of his total oeuvre to this one.

“It begins with a drone, and ends with a drone.
I’m really into drones.” He’s referring
to the viola (“the saddest of all instruments”)
he uses for his radical rereading of old Velvets’
standard, ‘Venus in Furs’. Was choosing
to perform this song, along with ‘Femme Fatale’
(which segues into the little-heard ‘Funeral Rosegarden
of Sores’ on the record), both from his pre-solo
days, a laying claim to songwriting credits he feels
are rightfully his, I ask, hinting at his long-standing
tussles with fellow ex-Velvet, Lou Reed. His reply is
diplomatic,

“Well, it’s a laying claim to the arrangements.
But all the songs on this album have different arrangements
from the originals,” he continues. “With
‘Gun’ (from 1974’s Eno & Manzanera
produced Fear) it’s like a new song,
we don’t do it every night, because we don’t
know where it’s gonna go.” “So it’s
like jazz improvisation?” “Yeah,”
he laughs, “Miles Davis territory.” It sounds
like he feels he’s finally found the players to
interpret his songs with new twists, new dimensions
and new emotions. When he looks back, does he think
in terms of albums, or individual songs, when he’s
deciding on what set-list to play?

“It’s drama. The shape of the set changes
every night. Sometimes the encore is ‘Hush’,
sometimes ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, sometimes
‘Leaving It Up To You’.”

Have improvements in the technology, which he’s
always kept up with, made it easier to replicate the
range of effects obtainable in the studio in a live
setting?

“Absolutely. That’s one of the reasons
I wanted to get into the provinces on this tour, and
play in smaller venues, because of the production. We
have a lot of gear, and we wanted to be sure we’d
be playing in places where it would work. I’ve
got this great new piece of gear, which is gonna be
a lot of fun to use on stage. It’s like this studio
I’m working in now, it’s got these old machines
– like an old Wurlitzer and an old Hammond organ,
and they just don’t sound like anything else.
You get a unique sound in each studio.”

Of all the production work he’s done (his credits
include debuts by Iggy & The Stooges, Jonathan Richman
and Patti Smith) what was his favourite experience?

“Nico. The Marble Index. She allowed
my European sensibility to come through.”

So, which does he prefer, working in the studio or
playing live?

“Live is always better.”

Given this attitude, you’d be thoroughly unwise
to miss him and his band when they hit town. I finish
up by asking does he ever intend to stop? “Why,
are you gonna stop? Even the government doesn’t
want you to retire these days. They’re happy if
you keep paying tax.”